Land of the Teahttps://landofthetea.com
Conservative blog with a dash of Tea Party common sense.
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1 http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngLand of the Teahttps://landofthetea.com
I’m fed up.https://landofthetea.com/2018/11/16/470/
https://landofthetea.com/2018/11/16/470/#commentsFri, 16 Nov 2018 20:40:33 +0000http://landofthetea.com/?p=470Continue reading →]]>In March, 2014, a friend from childhood reached out to me and asked me to write a speech for a character in a book he was writing. I was able to write the speech in one evening as most of it came from the heart. He never completed the book so I’m posting the speech here. Let me know your thoughts.

I’m fed up with the way they look down on us. Their arrogance. Their elitism.

Their constant assault on our rights. Our inalienable rights.

…

I’m. Fed. Up.

[A deep breathe. A look to the sky in silent prayer.]

I’m angry…… Yet… I’m not bitter.

I’ve harnessed my anger. Through His strength I’m channeling it in the right direction. My anger is part of me, but not all of me. Just one small part of a complex individual.

Unique, like everyone else.

I’m frustrated, yet I am not disheartened.

In fact, I’m full of hope.

Hope.

Take a moment to look at one another.

Look at one another. Look in each others’ eyes. Into each others’ souls.

You see it, don’t you?

You see the spark. That spark of hope. You feel it. You recognize it in each other because it is within yourself. That spark of hope within you. Within us. It has always been there.

Hope.

We have hope.

It was hidden, but never gone. It was shaded, but ever burning.

We have hope!

Rejoice!

Rejoice!

We are the masters of our fate!

We decide how we should live our lives!

We determine how to pursue our own happiness!

Our lives are our own!

We are free!

We are still yet free!

We are free to determine our future!

We are free to reverse what has transpired before us!

We are free to give our children a better world than what we found!

We are free to end the corruption!

We are free to empower our neighbors to control their own lives!

We are free to respect one another and not be manipulated by career politicians!

Rejoice!

Rejoice!

We are free!

We are free!

We are free!

We are free!

]]>https://landofthetea.com/2018/11/16/470/feed/1landoftheteaTrump did not say Nazis were “fine people.”https://landofthetea.com/2018/11/03/trump-did-not-say-nazis-were-fine-people/
https://landofthetea.com/2018/11/03/trump-did-not-say-nazis-were-fine-people/#respondSat, 03 Nov 2018 19:29:31 +0000http://landofthetea.com/?p=467Continue reading →]]>One of the many ongoing myths generated and perpetuated by the main stream media is Trump said some Nazis/white supremacists were fine people. This was done by the media bombarding Trump with questions at a news conference about infrastructure. The media was constantly interrupting him. They then selectively edited some of his comments to make this assertion. We’ll display below Trump’s comments at the same press conference the media chose to leave out. The last quote is the money quote. You can go here to see the text of the entirety of the press conference.

“…we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence. It has no place in America.”

“…you had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent…”

“I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee.”

“…many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.”

“You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

“And you had people, and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You’ve got — you had a lot of bad — you had a lot of bad people in the other group…”

]]>https://landofthetea.com/2018/11/03/trump-did-not-say-nazis-were-fine-people/feed/0landofthetea2000 Report On The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedownhttps://landofthetea.com/2017/03/10/2000-report-on-the-trillion-dollar-bank-shakedown/
https://landofthetea.com/2017/03/10/2000-report-on-the-trillion-dollar-bank-shakedown/#respondFri, 10 Mar 2017 23:33:36 +0000http://landofthetea.com/?p=405Continue reading →]]>Back in 2000, Howard Husok wrote in the City-Journal about how the Clinton Presidency and the left-wing groups created a shake down of banks. It is a thorough read and as you read it you realize how the housing bubble and collapse came to be. Here is the lead in with link to read more at the bottom.

The Community Reinvestment Act funnels billions to left-wing activists, while threatening to destabilize lower-middle-class neighborhoods.

The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation’s banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.

The CRA’s premise sounds unassailable: helping the poor buy and keep homes will stabilize and rebuild city neighborhoods. As enforced today, though, the law portends just the opposite, threatening to undermine the efforts of the upwardly mobile poor by saddling them with neighbors more than usually likely to depress property values by not maintaining their homes adequately or by losing them to foreclosure. The CRA’s logic also helps to ensure that inner-city neighborhoods stay poor by discouraging the kinds of investment that might make them better off.

]]>https://landofthetea.com/2017/03/10/2000-report-on-the-trillion-dollar-bank-shakedown/feed/0landoftheteaIf You Make $50,000 Per Year, You Pay…. Debunkedhttps://landofthetea.com/2015/08/25/if-you-make-50000-per-year-you-pay-debunked/
https://landofthetea.com/2015/08/25/if-you-make-50000-per-year-you-pay-debunked/#respondTue, 25 Aug 2015 21:44:14 +0000http://landofthetea.com/?p=363Continue reading →]]>This photo has made the rounds on social media for a couple years and I was requested to research it.

Our tax system is too convoluted to make simplistic assertions such as this. Or, perhaps since it is so convoluted one can make assertions such as this. The dates listed at the bottom of the picture indicate a 2012 tax receipt at WhiteHouse.gov which you can no longer access directly. You can enter that web address in your browser or click here, but the site now defaults to 2014. This website allows you to enter in the amount of federal income tax you paid and it will list out the percentage of it that goes to different portions of our federal budget.

I’m not a tax expert and our tax system is complicated so I’ll attempt to keep my stab at this as simple as possible. I selected a single person earning regular income of $50,000 for the year 2014 which falls in the 25% marginal income tax bracket. Please note the 25% only applies to the portion of one’s income above $36.9k as different income levels are taxed differently. Social Security is a flat tax of 6.2% while the Medicare tax rate is 1.45%. Keep in mind the employer also pays the same matching percentage on Social Security and Medicare. The person in my example has a standard deductible (tax credit) of $6,300 (though another person’s deductions could be higher) and a personal exemption (tax credit) of $2,000 (though a married person and/or a person with dependents would be higher.) Based on this, utilizing an online tax calculator tool, here is my best estimate on the highest possible federal taxes paid by someone earning $50,000 annually:

$50,000 less a ($6,300) standard deductible less a ($2,000) personal exemption would leave $41,700 in taxable income at the federal tax rates equates to $6,225 in federal taxes paid. Plugging this figure into the White House tax receipt site indicates the following:

$1,488 for National Defense (much higher than the example.)

$24.28 for Response to National Disasters (lower than the example, but could be due to Hurricane Sandy in 2012.)

The calculator requests you to plug in the Social Security and Medicare figures which would be $2,585 and $605 respectively, but are matched by the employer. Federal Unemployment Insurance is covered by a separate tax known as FUTA and is only paid by the employer. SNAP and welfare benefits were not available on the White House calculator. These are a very small amount in comparison to the overall budget. But, that may change if you calculate those the same way one calculates corporate welfare.

Our corporate income tax is comparatively high at 35%. Within this are various options for tax credits which vary between industries. Measuring the totality of all of these credits is difficult to quantify. For the year 2014 it is calculated corporate welfare cost the federal coffers $100 billion. If you divide this by the approximate adult population in the United States it equates to about $406 per person. Even if you stretched this only to the 123.14 million full-time employees in 2014, it only equates to $812 per person.

Conclusion: False. The amounts listed for corporate welfare are exaggerated while the other totals are either downplayed (national defense), not paid by individuals in the first place (unemployment insurance), or are matched in totals by the employer (Social Security and Medicare.)

However, let us take this a step further. If tax credits and grants to businesses are corporate welfare, then are not tax credits and grants to individuals also types of welfare? Individuals are treated differently within out tax structure based on a variety of criteria (e.g. single or married, children or none, head of household or not, straight income or capital gains, progressive taxation, homeowners versus non, student loans versus none, etc.) There are plethora of tax credits available to individuals based on these variables which are comparable to the tax credits available to corporations. If it is appropriate for us to estimate the total tax credits for corporations and call them corporate welfare then we should do the same for personal tax credits.

The whole tax structure is intentionally complex. The government currently selects winners and losers within the markets by granting tax credits to some while withholding them from others. This is done at both the corporate and individual levels. Government officials pit us against each other by incentivizing us to use them as our vehicle for our fair share ahead of our own initiative. Have you not ever wondered how a government official becomes wealthy while in office? (For example some estimates show President Obama’s net worth has octupled between 2007 – 2012.)

“The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.”

]]>https://landofthetea.com/2015/08/25/if-you-make-50000-per-year-you-pay-debunked/feed/0landoftheteaPolitics of Race, part 2 – Historical Perspective of Republicans and Democratshttps://landofthetea.com/2012/11/02/politics-of-race-part-2-historical-perspective-of-republicans-and-democrats/
https://landofthetea.com/2012/11/02/politics-of-race-part-2-historical-perspective-of-republicans-and-democrats/#commentsFri, 02 Nov 2012 16:00:37 +0000http://landofthetea.com/?p=187Continue reading →]]>After 360,000 Union soldiers died in winning the Civil War, under the leadership of the first Republican President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, the country was finally poised to pass legislation regarding the abolition of slavery. This was accomplished with the ratifying of the 13th Amendment with 100% Republican support against a large majority of Democrats opposing it.

Upon Lincoln’s assassination, Democrat Andrew Johnson assumed the Presidency. Republicans passed the 1866 Civil Rights Act conferring citizenship to all persons born in the United States, without regard to race, color, or previous condition. President Johnson vetoed the bill and stated, “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government of white men. ” The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, which included former slaves recently freed at that time. It also forbade states from denying any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. The 14th Amendment was voted against by 100% of Democrats in both the House and the Senate. Where as 100% of Republicans voted for it in the House, and 94% for it in the Senate.

In 1870, the 15th Amendment was passed by Republicans granting blacks the right to vote against 100% opposition of Democrats in the House. All three of these Amendments were passed even though the Ku Klux Klan had been attempting to intimidate voters through terrorists tactics. White congressman James Hinds, a Republican, was murdered by the KKK in Arkansas as he was there attempting to teach newly freed blacks of their rights. During this same time, Tunis Campbell and 24 other black Georgia State Senators were expelled by a Democrat majority until reinstated by a Republican controlled Congress.

In 1912, Democrat Woodrow Wilson brought Jim Crow to Washington. He was elected when many blacks voted for him after he had stated in a letter to a black church official, “Should I become President of the United States they may count upon me for absolute fair dealing for everything by which I could assist in advancing their interests of the race.” This marked the first significant year of 100 years and counting of Democrats lying to blacks to pursue a racist political agenda.

In 1940, the Republican platform called for the integration of American armed forces, but for the duration of his presidency, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt refused to order it and continued the tradition of segregation in the Federal Government. FDR also appointed former KKK member and fellow Democrat to the Supreme Court, Hugo Black.

In 1948, the Democrat party had started to somewhat relent on segregation and other civil rights issues. This led to many leaving the party to join the States Rights Democratic Party. These members who left are referred to as the Dixiecrats (as opposed to Dixiecans had they been Republicans). Curiously, the only one you ever hear about is the one Democrat who 18 years later became a Republican, Strom Thurmond. The fact that all the others were and remained Democrats through the entirety of their political life is buried. The media, our public schools, and the Democrats misinform the public and attempt to insinuate that the Democrats who bolted from the Democrat party joined the Republican party. That is categorically false and easily reputed by looking at the facts. Here is a list of Senators affiliated with the racist Dixiecrat movement:

(D)VA Harry F. Byrd, 1933-1965

(D)VA A. Willis Robertson, 1946-1966

(D)MS John C. Stennis, 1947-1989

(D)MS James O. Eastland, 1941-1941, 1943-1978

(D)LA Allen J. Ellender, 1937-1972

(D)LA Russell B. Long, 1948-1987

(D)OK Thomas Pryor Gore, 1906-1921, 1931-1937

(D)AL J. Lister Hill, 1938-1969

(D)AL John J. Sparkman, 1946-1979

(D)FL Spessard Holland, 1946-1971

(D)FL George Smathers, 1951-1969

(D)SC Olin D. Johnston, 1945-1965

(D,R)SC Strom Thurmond, 1954-1956, 1956-2003

(D)AR John McClellan, 1943-1977

(D)GA Richard B. Russell, Jr., 1933-1971

(D)GA Herman E. Talmadge, 1957-1981

(D)TN Herbert S. Walters, 1963-1964

Democrat’s racism continued through the 1950s, although the party was continuing to divide on civil rights issues. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 with 92% of Republicans supporting the bill and only 54% of Democrats voting for it. The Democrats attempted to filibuster the bill from coming to a vote. Voting against the ’57 Civil Rights Act was one John F. Kennedy. Lyndon B. Johnson had a spotless record of voting against all former attempts at Civil Rights legislation, but his political ambitions persuaded him to change his mind on the issue. Johnson’s explanation of why he supported the 1957 Act:

“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”

Then in the ’60s, Bull Connor, member of the Democrat National Committee and the KKK, best known for allowing fire hoses and police dogs to be unleashed on black protestors, arrested Martin Luther King, Jr. One interesting fact about King is that he was a Republican. Although John & Robert Kennedy had approved wire tapping of King during those years, JFK did make the phone call to get King released from jail. Then with Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson as president, the final version of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was written by a Republican and passed congress with almost 90% Republican approval and against almost 30% Democrat opposition. This means every civil rights legislation passed in the United States from the Civil War to this point in time were written by Republicans. Some Democrats again attempted to filibuster the vote for the 1964 Act, but failed.

One prominent Republican who voted against the legislation was Barry Goldwater, but he was a long proponent of civil rights and had voted in favor for all previous forms of the bill, but as a libertarian Republican, he was strictly opposed to the infringement on private property rights that some parts of the bill was to do. Goldwater’s vote and Strom Thurmond switching from the Democrats to the Republicans is what is used as proof for the myth that the parties switched places. Twenty-one Democrat Senators voted against the ’64 Act. Thurmond was the only one who became a Republican. One man switching parties can not undo over 150 years of historical fact that Republicans have always been the party of freedom. Notably, William Fulbright (D) voted against the bill and was the mentor of Bill Clinton. Al Gore Sr. (D) also voted against the bill. Frantz Kebreua of StolenHistory.org has done a fantastic job of researching this topic.

Some in Democratic circles attempt to draw racism as being due to geography with references to the “deep south”. Migration trends over the years show this to be a false argument. From 1975 to 2007, the southern states lost 13 million people who migrated from their states to other regions. However, during that same time period, they saw an influx from the other regions to the tune of 19.7 million people. Not to mention the fact that since 1950, the population of the United States has more than doubled, increasing by over 150 million people. Claims that geography holds some residual power over one’s stance on race is ridiculous.

The next Democratic lie is the “Southern Strategy” myth that they push citing Richard Nixon courted disenfranchised racist voters of the Democratic Party in the 1968 election. Republicans had been making inroads in the south prior to that and the south was trending Republican for years, just as America was trending towards freedom and equality for years and dragging the Democratic Party with it. In 1952, President Dwight Eisenhower (R) won three southern states, and won five in 1956. In addition, Eisenhower won the popular vote in the souther states and narrowly missed winning a sixth state, North Carolina, that would have carried a majority of the southern states. Nixon picked up North Carolina 12 years later to continue the trend that had been around for two decades.

Blacks began overwhelmingly voting for Democrats starting in 1948. No Republican has earned over 15% of the black vote since then except one. Richard Nixon received 32% of their vote in 1960.

The truth is simple. The Democratic Party has long attempted to use government power to reduce individual liberty, whether from the state or federal level, while the Republican Party has long been on the side of freedom. Knowledge is power. The truth sets us free.

]]>https://landofthetea.com/2012/11/02/politics-of-race-part-2-historical-perspective-of-republicans-and-democrats/feed/40landoftheteaRunaway Slavehttps://landofthetea.com/2012/10/19/runaway-slave/
https://landofthetea.com/2012/10/19/runaway-slave/#respondSat, 20 Oct 2012 02:17:25 +0000http://landofthetea.com/?p=330Continue reading →]]>I recently watched the movie Runaway Slave as it is now available to watch On Demand by many cable providers. It is an inspirational movie about C.L. Bryant’s journey from former NAACP local chapter president to Tea Party participant, and his journey across America to find others who are running from the government plantation of entitlements. Along the way, he finds many black conservatives. I will give you a brief introduction to some of them here. Others that are mentioned have links embedded where you can learn more about them. Remember, knowledge is power. The truth sets us free.

Freedom will not protect you. You must protect freedom… Liberals are very good at managing poverty, very good at making you comfortable with poverty… I began to realize that if you are a liberal politician, you did not want your community to ever get prosperous.

Who’s really on the plantation? Is it Democrats or Republicans? Conservative or Liberal? Because Conservatives say ‘I don’t need government. I don’t need a handout. I can do it for myself.’ While Democrats say, ‘Government, come on in. I can’t pay my mortgage, you pay it for me.’ No, we want to be independent. We want to be left alone to make our own way. We’re not responsible for how we’re born. But, we are responsible for how we die.

Here, in this land of dreams that we call America, it is about your individual sovereignty.

Dr. Thomas Sowell, who has studied and taught economics, intellectual history, and social policy at institutions that include Cornell University, UCLA, and Amherst College. He is now a part of the Hoover Institution. Sowell has published more than a dozen books, the latest of which is a revised and updated edition of his classic volume, Basic Economics. One of my favorite Sowell quotes:

Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?

During Bryant’s journey, we are also introduced K. Carl Smith who explains why he is a Frederick Douglass Republican:

I am a Frederick Douglass Republican because the life-empowering message that Douglass advocated aligns with my personal values: (1) Respect for the Constitution; (2) Respect for Life; (3) Believe in Limited Government; and (4) Belief in Personal Responsibility.

Deneen Borelli, Sonja Schmidt, and Erik Rush. Rush is the author of the book, “Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal – America’s Racial Obsession”. The book “studies the undue and inordinate affinity for blacks (as opposed to antipathy toward them) that has been promoted by activists, politicians and the establishment press for the past 40 years and which has fostered an erroneous perception of blacks, particularly in America.”

During the movie, Marvin Rogers illustrates the history the Republican Party and it’s involvement with civil rights in America. He speaks about the founding of the Republican Party in 1854 as it was born as an abolitionist party. The first Republican platform that was written said:

We believe that slavery is a violation of the rights of man.

Rogers goes on to speak about the Republican Party being responsible for the passing of the XIII, XIV, and XV Amendments to the Constitution that made slavery illegal, granted citizenship and due process of law to former slaves and blacks, and granted blacks the right to vote.

One very enlightening item that Rogers speaks about is the Civil Rights bill of 1957 that was opposed by Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy. Johnson at the time said:

These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days, and that’s a problem for us, since they’ve got something now they never had before: the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this – we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.

Bryant spends time interviewing people on the street. He asks one unnamed black person with an African accent, “I have noticed that most Africans who come to this country don’t necessarily want to associate themselves with the American black. Why is that?” The man answers,

They believe we have lost our footage… And they can’t understand how people in America, how they can still be enslaved in their minds in this day in time when freedom is all around you.

The film repeatedly speaks to the principles of economic freedom. Individual liberty and personal responsibility. It represents well Frederick Douglass, former slave, who once said:

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.

The film reviews the history of Harriet Tubman who was a former slave who escaped. Yet she returned to the slave states numerous times to lead other slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. If only we had Tubman alive today. The black conservatives in this film take on Tubman’s cause, and they can only agree with what Tubman said so many years ago:

I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.

]]>https://landofthetea.com/2012/10/19/runaway-slave/feed/0landoftheteaNow Dismantling Obama’s Talking Pointshttps://landofthetea.com/2012/10/17/now-dismantling-obamas-talking-points/
https://landofthetea.com/2012/10/17/now-dismantling-obamas-talking-points/#commentsWed, 17 Oct 2012 23:14:58 +0000http://landofthetea.com/?p=325Continue reading →]]>“Acts of Terror”. We will start at the end where some are going to focus on the debate of language. You can read the President’s transcript from his speech in the Rose Garden where he referred in generalities to “acts of terror.” I strongly suggest reading the transcript in context of everything else coming from the White House over the week following the attacks. Regardless of whether he referred in generalities to “acts of terror” or not, the White House stayed away from tying the attacks to being from terrorists for over a week after his Rose Garden speech. Glenn Klessler of the Washington Post’s Fact Checker stated this regarding how the White House handled the Benghazi attacks:

For political reasons, it certainly was in the White House’s interests to not portray the attack as a terrorist incident, especially one that took place on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead the administration kept the focus on what was ultimately a red herring — anger in the Arab world over anti-Muslim video posted on You Tube. With key phrases and message discipline, the administration was able to conflate an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Egypt — which apparently was prompted by the video — with the deadly assault in Benghazi.

Immigration. President Obama had two years to govern with Democratic super majorities in Congress to pursue his promise of comprehensive immigration reform. He stated when running for office in 2008 what he would do regarding immigration reform:

I will make (immigration reform) a top priority in my first year as president.

The President stated during the town hall debate that “Part of the Arizona law said that law enforcement officers could stop folks because they suspected maybe they looked like they might be undocumented workers and check their papers.” This is false. The Arizona law reads in two parts referring to this:

requires law enforcement, in making a lawful stop, detention, or arrest for another law, to make a reasonable attempt to determine the person’s immigration status where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is not lawfully present in the country;

And the law goes on to clarify:

Law enforcement “may not consider race, color, or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution.”

And:

The legislation provides that: it must be implemented in a manner consistent with federal laws regarding immigration, protecting all persons’ civil rights, and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens;

The President also stated, “What I’ve also said is if we’re going to go after folks who are here illegally, we should do it smartly and go after folks who are criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families. And that’s what we’ve done.”

ICE agent Chris Crane, who is President of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, the union representing America’s more than 7,000 ICE agents and personnel, stated:

It’s impossible to even get a picture of what our priorities are now. I have never seen or heard of the type of fly by the seat of your pants, disorganized confusion in a law enforcement organization like what we are currently experiencing at ICE.

Prosecutorial discretion for DREAMers, is solely based on the individual’s claims. Our orders are: if an alien says they went to high school, then let them go; if they say they have a GED, then let them go. Officers have been told that there is no burden for the alien to prove anything. …. At this point, we do not understand why DHS has any criteria at all, as there is no requirement or burden to prove anything on the part of the alien. We believe a significant number of people who are not DREAMers are taking advantage of this practice to avoid arrest.”

At the same press conference, Border Patrol Council President George McCubbin criticized the Department of Homeland Securities attempts to portray the drop in illegal alien arrest rates as a sign of success:

Apprehensions at just one of our stations have fallen from over 600 annually to just under 30 even though now they have 10 times the number of agents assigned to that one station… Our agency has made it impossible for the agents to go out there and do their jobs.

The President has not enforced our immigration laws for political reasons and has made it difficult for our law enforcement officials to do their jobs.

Romney’s economic plan. The President stated Romney “Romney doesn’t have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules.”

This is the standard line from Democrats every election cycle. Romney was able to explain how he will cut taxes on everyone, but limit the amount of deductions by capping them at a certain point. Obviously, the cap will be high enough that almost all middle income earners will not reach the cap getting the entirety of their eligible deductions. The highest earners will have a limit on the deductions they can claim which plausibly makes up much of the ground for their tax cut, leaving the highest income bracket still paying 60% of the tax revenues as they pay now.

I wish Romney would explain simply what I covered after the VP debate. Historically, tax revenues in American tend to remain a constant percentage of the GDP regardless of tax rates. In 1954, the marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans was 90%. During the 1960′s, it began to lower, but never dropped below 50% until 1986. Dr. Antony Davies, Associate Professor of Economics at the Palumbo Donahue School of Business for Duquesne University states, “Throughout this period, the government’s revenue was almost 17% of GDP.” From 1987, the top marginal tax rate ranged from 40% to 28% and the tax revenues for the government were just under 18% of GDP.

Health care and religious freedom. VP Joe Biden stated, “With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.”

Actually, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops begs to differ saying “This is not a fact. The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain ‘religious employers.’ That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to ‘Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital,’ or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served.”

On the economy and the Romney/Ryan economic plan. Regardless that everyone acknowledges that cutting out tax loopholes will make up some of the taxes cut by the Romney/Ryan plan, including Stephanie Cutter, there are simple reasons how cutting taxes increases tax revenues. Biden seemed to have difficulty understanding how this works.

Historically, tax revenues in American tend to remain a constant percentage of the GDP regardless of tax rates. In 1954, the marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans was 90%. During the 1960’s, it began to lower, but never dropped below 50% until 1986. Dr. Antony Davies, Associate Professor of Economics at the Palumbo Donahue School of Business for Duquesne University states, “Throughout this period, the government’s revenue was almost 17% of GDP.” From 1987, the top marginal tax rate ranged from 40% to 28% and the tax revenues for the government were just under 18% of GDP.

Obviously, 18% of a larger GDP generates more revenue than 18% of a smaller GDP. So the question is, how do you grow the GDP? The Gross Domestic Product is the overlap of the three sides of the economy: expenditures, output, and income. Simply put, the best way to increase these three areas is to lower taxes (lower the risk for individuals and businesses to invest their resources) and to lessen the burden of regulations so that it is easier to do business.

Dr. Jeff Miron, Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard University’s Department of Economics, states “Raising taxes slows the economy down. That means less tax revenue.” Growth leads to additional growth. As more businesses invest money in either expansion or capital improvements, that generates revenue for other businesses and individuals. Government can not adequately perform this role for multiple reasons. One, it leads to government cronyism such as Solyndra and Chevy Volts. Second, as Dr. Miron explains that government spending is bad because that is spending that “could have been in the private sector. It is spending that could have been done by a private business or an individual on something that they thought was productive, useful, or valuable. So, we’re making decisions on that spending in Washington instead of out there in the country by individuals.”

Miron continues, “In addition, that spending is distorting all of the ways that resources are allocated. By spending money to subsidize health insurance, we’re encouraging people to purchase too much health care. That is really bad for the efficiency of the health care system. By spending money by trying to enforce drug prohibition, we’re creating crime and corruption. That is really bad for the economy. And the list goes on and on with few exceptions such as say, some for national defense. [Government] spending causes tons of problems because it interferes with the workings of private markets.”

On the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Biden claims the reason for the current deficit is due to the wars. In 2011, our federal government spent $3.7 trillion. We had to borrow about a trillion dollars of the money to cover all of that spending. The money we borrow is what comprises the deficit. So how much of the $3.7 trillion was for the OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations aka the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan)? It was a whopping 4.3% of the entire budget. That amounts to a lot less than the annual deficit. The totality of Defense spending in addition to that was only another 14.4%.

On foreign policy, where the debate most often centered, Biden referred to the terrorists attacks on an American consulate in Benghazi killing four Americans saying, “We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there.”

This is either a lie, or a show of incompetence. Were we not told that President Obama didn’t require to be briefed on security by the security experts because he received his security briefs in written form? Remember when Obama said:

I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors.

Disgraceful.

During the debate, Biden also stated why the White House mistakenly believed the attacks were spontaneously spurred by a Youtube video, “‘The intelligence community told us that. As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.” This has brought the rebuke of those affiliated with the intelligence community. A joint statement was issued by Michael Hayden, former CIA director, and Michael Chertoff, who served as Homeland Security chief, saying:

During the Vice Presidential debate, we were disappointed to see Vice President Biden blame the intelligence community for the inconsistent and shifting response of the Obama Administration to the terrorist attacks in Benghazi.

Given what has emerged publicly about the intelligence available before, during, and after the September 11 attack, it is clear that any failure was not on the part of the intelligence community, but on the part of White House decision-makers who should have listened to, and acted on, available intelligence. Blaming those who put their lives on the line is not the kind of leadership this country needs.

Then Biden followed up his trashing of our intelligence community on Benghazi by assuring us that we could rely on our intelligence community to correctly inform us when Iran would be capable of loading their nuclear material into a weapon. He can not have it both ways. Biden deplores our intelligence community when it is politically expedient, and immediately turns around and lauds them when it was then politically expedient for him to do so.

As Joe Biden asked the American people, “Who do you trust?”

]]>https://landofthetea.com/2012/10/12/dismantling-bidens-vp-debate-talking-points/feed/0landoftheteaPolitics of Race, part 1 – Slaveryhttps://landofthetea.com/2012/09/18/politics-of-race-part-1-slavery/
https://landofthetea.com/2012/09/18/politics-of-race-part-1-slavery/#commentsTue, 18 Sep 2012 23:50:33 +0000http://landofthetea.com/?p=172Continue reading →]]>The United States of America was founded on the belief that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

The entire world was guilty of enslaving their own and others for over 4,000 years (and that’s just recorded history). Then those words were so eloquently written. Those most basic of Rights don’t come from government. They are innate. The USA is the greatest harbinger of freedom this world has ever known. It has not come easy, but for a country to overcome over 4,000 years of historical precedent in 88 years is miraculous.

Do you believe that slavery is unique to Africans being enslaved by white Americans and Europeans? There is much political leverage to be had if that is what you falsely believe. Guilt is a powerful weapon. Slavery existed long before there was a United States of America. Slavery has existed in many cultures consisting of all peoples long before the African slave trade of more recent origins. Slavery is abhorrent and we as Americans should be disappointed it took so long and a massive war to finally end it within our borders. But, we should take pride that our country was founded on the ideals that led to its abolition. Those ideals did not just lead to slavery being abolished within the borders of the United States, but throughout the entire world.

Documented accounts of slavery show it began almost 4,000 years ago, as early as the 18th Century BC in Babylon. The Code of Hammurabi discusses the laws pertaining to slavery at it relates to ancient Babylon. Ancient Greece in 7th Century BC, even with all their wisdom that has been passed down from their civilization, they too are not free of slavery. They routinely enslaved those that they conquered. Hundreds of years later, many are probably already familiar with Spartacus and the slave revolt in Rome in the century before the time of Christ. Spartacus was born as a freeman in Thracia in southeast Europe. In 387 AD, Saint Patrick was born a freeman in Britain to a family that owned slaves. At age 16, he was captured and became a slave himself in Ireland.

People were routinely captured in wars, the defeated turned into slaves. This happened throughout the world and consisted of all people enslaving those they defeated in battle – Europe, Africa, Middle East, Russia, China, Japan, Native Americans, Aztecs, Mayans, etc. There is not a race in history that is free of the guilt of enslaving others.

White slave labor was more susceptible to tropical diseases than black slave labor leading to a rapid growth in the African slave trade. Over the next three centuries, over 12 million African slaves were traded/sold from their African slave masters to slave traders who transported them to Europe and the Americas. In 1807, the slave trade was abolished in Britain and the United States. Britain later outlawed slavery in it’s territories altogether in 1833. Britain then began exerting diplomatic pressure in Africa to encourage an end to slavery. To which, African King Gezo, in 1840, stated, “The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…” King Gezo agreed to do whatever Britain requested as long as it was not to end his prosperous slave trade.

In 1860, the United States federal census shows that there were 261,988 free blacks living in the southern slave holding states. There were 10,689 living in New Orleans, of which over 3,000 owned slaves. That amounts to 28% of free blacks in one city owning other blacks as slaves compared to 4.8% of southern whites being known as slave holders. It is true that a vast majority of black slaves in America were owned by whites, but it is also true that a vast majority of white Americans did not own slaves (less than 2% of white Americans owned slaves at that time).

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 with their primary objective to end slavery in the United States. In 1861, the first Republican President was elected, Abraham Lincoln, leading to 11 slave holding southern states seceding from the union. This led to the Civil War where over 360,000 Union soldiers died fighting for the abolition of slavery. The victory was complete when slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865.

Brazil was the last New World country to abolish slavery as they continued to participate in the African slave trade until 1888. While the Atlantic slave trade was coming to an end during this period, the trans-Saharan slave trade was at its peak. It continued until European powers in the 1880s and 1890s found slavery so offensive, that they used it as justification for colonizing Africa. Through force, Europeans disrupted most slave trading routes. Even then, slavery continued in Africa until it was almost completely ended in the 1930s. It is sadly ironic that the enslavement of Africans was first perpetrated by Africans, and was last perpetrated by Africans.

]]>https://landofthetea.com/2012/09/18/politics-of-race-part-1-slavery/feed/10landoftheteaVoters Should Researchhttps://landofthetea.com/2012/09/09/voters-should-research/
https://landofthetea.com/2012/09/09/voters-should-research/#commentsSun, 09 Sep 2012 12:16:37 +0000http://landofthetea.com/?p=299Continue reading →]]>Those who plan on voting should be responsible enough to do a little research. This 13 minute video is a good place to start. Those who have been paying attention know that this video could have easily been much longer, but they did a good job of editing it down to capture the attention of the inattentive.
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